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A Chinese crypto Opinion leader shared his experience as well as the “survival skills” in last bear market between 2013 and 2016 on his Weibo under an assumed name of “ahr999’. The article has been reprinted on 8btc forum, China’s first and largest Bitcoin community, and become one of the hottest posts which triggers a heated debate.

There are things that you can never appreciate the difficulty except through personal experience. Newcomers in the crypto world didn’t experience last bear run but may start to understand the brutality of the crypto market in recent months. They may wonder what happened in the last bear market and how could the veterans overcome it.

Then the adventures of ahr999 may be worth reading.

“I entered the crypto market since last bear run. So I have no idea about what the previous bear market was like. I heard about the tragedy that Bitcoin price dropped from $35 to $2 within six months. What’s worse, media went wild on the later ‘Mt.Gox incident’ and all voices were bearish on Bitcoin. But I could not imagine how hard it was at that time. I thought I was a good learner and had faith in coping with the bear market.

I chose to devote to the crypto world without hesitation in 2014. When I look back, I did prepare well and did not make any fatal mistakes, but that was still too much for me to bear.”

Drop from $1000 to $175

According to Coinmarketcap, Bitcoin topped $1,000 for the first time in November 2013, but the spike didn’t last long. In Jan 2015, Bitcoin price plunged to $175, almost fell 90 percent.

Actually, buying Bitcoins in any time-point during that time would be so profitable later on. People may admire Bitcoin early bird for their fortune. But they were suffered from the market crash even worse than what we are experiencing today.

The two Bitcoin price chats are quite similar. In 2017, Bitcoin surged from $2000 in July to nearly $20,000 in December, however, it dropped from sky-high levels to around $3,600 with 80 percent losses. Crypto investors are having a hard time coping with stress and are approaching the ‘breaking point’.

If history repeats, we are only halfway through the bear market

Ahr999’s bear market survival skills may be useful to many crypto investors suffered from this market crash.

In last bull market, ahr999 dived his fund into 10 portions, when he though the price dropped to the bottom, he used a portion of his money to go bottom fishing.

In the first half of 2014, the Mt.Got incident and the rumors of government crackdown drag the Bitcoin down from $700 to $350, meanwhile, the bearish voices drove the price further down to $300.

At that time, Ahr999 believed that $300 is the bottom for Bitcoin and he spent over 60 percent of his fund to buy in. At that time, whenever the prices drop to $300, investors in the crypto communities were yelling to sell their houses to buy the coins.

Everyone believed that as Bitcoin had dropped over 75% there was not much room left for the price to fall. In addition, the bear market had lasted for one year, investors still remain are the true believer of Bitcoin and they would never sell their coins.

However, Unfortunately, the price of Bitcoin fell woefully short of the expectation line. In January 2015, Bitcoin price halved in value within several days dropped from $300 to $135 without any extreme bad news.

Ahr999 said that: “Dead silence spread through all the chat groups, no one talked about bottom fishing. Most of the investors had no chips and forced to quit.”

Few people can survive in a bear market, Bitcoin believers have to bear the loneliness

As an opinion leader, ahr999 has written a series of articles to demonstrate the true value, as well as actual usage of Bitcoin, and he had a group of followers. When the Bitcoin price bottomed, some of his fans changed their attitude and criticized Bitcoin, they said ahr999’s posts were useless and Bitcoin is a bubble.

Ahr999 said that those words hurt him a lot. He also felt lonely as he felt became the only one in the world that still has a strong belief in Bitcoin.

“In the past, I always wanted to help people to get a better understanding of Bitcoin and remind others the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Later, although I was still optimistic about Bitcoin, I didn’t want to convince anyone. I would definitely catch the chance, as to whether this opportunity belongs to you, it is your choice, not my business.”

Ahr999 believed that the extremely low price was the product of the irrational markets, so he decided to buy in at $135. He recalled that:

“It took so long to top-up my exchange account and the trading volume on that day was very large. At that moment I realized that I was not alone. There were many people like me, still believed in the value of Bitcoin and went bottom fishing secretly.”

In the end, ahr999 indicated that there were a few people survived in last bear market. This time will be no exception either. However, he also said that

“if one day you feel so bad, so desperate, so lonely. Like you’re the only person in the world who still believes in Bitcoin. Believe me, you’re not alone.”

This post gets a lot of replies, most of the readers showed their comprehension and indicated that they get a better understanding of crypto through the bear market.

There are also some people challenge the standpoint of ‘HODL’, wondering why ahr999 didn’t sell his coin in last bull market, is he still waiting for the next bull run? But getting rich when you are old does not seem so attractive.